Buy it... if you wish to hear what arguably stands as the most cohesive of
John Frizzell's usually mundane, stock horror scores.

Avoid it... if only five to ten minutes of entertaining, rip-snorting music of
mechanical precision doesn't justify the lengthy album presentation.

EDITORIAL REVIEW

FILMTRACKS TRAFFIC RANK: #576

WRITTEN
9/17/03, REVISED 2/11/09

BUY IT

Frizzell

Thirteen Ghosts: (John Frizzell) This remake of William
Castle's 1960 classic of the same name follows the basic structure of the prior
storyline and utilizes modern set technologies to update its visual appeal. Met
with harsh criticism from audiences and critics alike, director Steve Beck's 2001
version of Thirteen Ghosts is a film that is surprisingly short on
believable characters and truly frightening sequences, and it's even more
surprisingly short on overall running time. The production attempted to compensate
for these flaws by presenting the haunted house with brilliant, elaborate sets of
glass and steel that truly steal the entire show. The family that enters the house,
claiming it as inheritance from a dead eccentric uncle, accidentally starts up a
bizarre machine within its basement, causing its massive gears and glass walls to
shift unpredictably and, in an unrelated twist, unleashing twelve ghosts who want
to kill one of them and thus, as thirteen in sum, unleash the forces of Hell on our
microwave and fast-food loving population. Estate taxes have never been so much
bloody fun. The film's subject matter was remarkably similar to the kind of
stereotypical genre work to which composer John Fizzell had usually been assigned
early in his career. Until his 180 degree turn in 2003, when his breakout score for
Gods and Generals shocked score listeners around the globe, Frizzell was the
master of scoring films in which poorly developed characters are running away from
scary threats, whether natural or otherwise. After Alien Resurrection and
Dante's Peak, Frizzell followed Thirteen Ghosts with a nearly
identical genre project for Ghost Ship in 2002. With so many overwhelming
similarities between the overarching elements of the plots of Thirteen
Ghosts and Ghost Ship, it's hard not to compare the two endeavors for
Frizzell. The composer was attempting to establish a new sound that would tread
somewhere in between the styles of Marco Beltrami and John Debney, whose
contemporary horror sounds had become the standard Hollywood issue. Frizzell had
typically stayed away from electronic elements, favoring unique instrumentation of
a traditional orchestra instead, and that formula largely continues here.

With Thirteen Ghosts featuring a distinct set of characters
(thirteen enemies, so to speak, if you include the twelve attacking ghosts and the
mechanism itself), Frizzell was challenged to provide each with a distinct style of
horror. The protagonists are only tools with which to spray blood, so they don't
qualify in the motif department. The machine that captures the spirits and opens
the gates of Hell is presented with a tingling array of percussive sounds, mostly
relating to metallic clangs and unusual sound effects of a similar nature. It's not
surprising that the tone of Michael Kamen's Event Horizon comes to mind.
Most of the ghosts are given no specific motif, though such identities could have
been lost in the edits of the film or album. Two exceptional standouts, however,
should be mentioned. First, "The Jackall" is performed with a memorably ripping
electric guitar-laced theme that is the only truly terrifying aspect of the score.
Likewise, the ballsy, pounding rhythm for "The Juggernaut" is a driving brass piece
combined with relentless cymbal crashes (which is a nice effect considering how
much glass is seen in the movie and the fact that cymbals often sound like
shattering glass when unleashed like this) and is easily the highlight of the
score. This theme opens the score album, and the same driving percussion and brass
theme would be heard again during the return of crazy Uncle Cyrus at the end of the
story. The other ghosts are presented with mostly generic, stock horror music that
crashes when appropriate and rumbles without unique instrumental clarity when
people are stalked. As the climax of the film approaches, fulfilling the quest for
the thirteenth ghost before having its plug pulled, the score builds a full head of
steam, offering several variations on "The Juggernaut" theme before finally ending
with a pleasant resolution of mundane, positive strings. Overall, the score is as
predictable as the film, though Frizzell executes it well enough to serve its
purpose, stirring up a horror score that goes beyond the call of duty in parts
while remaining barely functional in other parts. The out of print album will
demand your attention for about ten of its long sixty minutes. For curious
mainstream minds, the song "Excess" by Tricky and Alanis Morissette does not appear
on the album. A very similar formula would be employed by the composer for Ghost
Ship, and the two scores act as sister projects with very similar
sensibilities. Together, they're a noisy romp. ***@Amazon.com: CD or
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